


What Lies Beneath

by Ragdoll (Keshka)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 19:23:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14677797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keshka/pseuds/Ragdoll
Summary: Spock has withdrawn himself from the Enterprise, her crew, and most especially her Captain, and Jim is determined to find out why.





	What Lies Beneath

**Author's Note:**

> To keep up with the times I'm importing my fanwork over to AO3. :-) What Lies Beneath was originally written in 2009 and underwent a rewrite before posting here. This edit was tough; I was in a very specific emotional place when I wrote this and it was a challenge to find that place again. Not quite happy with the result. Please read the tag warnings carefully as this one gets dark (with a heavy dose of comfort).

Unsurprisingly, Uhura was the first to notice. 

They were bare months into their journey with Jim commanding the Enterprise (rather well, he thought) when she approached him, grim and troubled.  They'd both just come off alpha shift and it was with a tired spring in his step Jim had stepped into a turbolift bound for officer's quarters.  She'd slipped in behind him and hit the all-stop after three seconds of motion.

"Lieutenant?" he'd asked, cautious.  Uhura had done her level best to avoid him since she'd come back aboard the Enterprise and in turn he'd done his best to respect that.  They were professionals; he was Captain and she was Lieutenant, and he would have preferred being friends but he'd make do with colleagues.  He'd expected her to have a duty request for him, but she surprised him.

"Have you talked to Spock, recently?" she'd asked.

"No?  Why?  Should I have?"

"Yes, you should," she'd said.  "Because he's not talking to me."

"What?  But aren't you two still, uh -"

"No," she'd said.  "And we never really were."  And nothing more, except:

"Figure it out.  _Captain_."

He still hadn't thought much of it at first, certainly hadn't assumed anything was wrong.  Spock was a Vulcan; they were mysterious and odd at the best of times, and what did Jim know about what was and wasn't normal for one?  Even if this Vulcan was someone he'd forged an intense connection with during Nero, and even if they'd been working toward what promised to be an amazing friendship, and even if sometimes Jim caught himself daydreaming about how remarkably handsome Spock was to look at it.  None of that meant he _knew_ Spock, really; they'd only met a few scant months ago.

But then Jim had gone tiredly back to his quarters and fallen asleep on Uhura's demands and woke in the morning to the realization that, well, Spock _had_ been rather quiet lately.  And he'd been growing more so as time went on and there probably _was_ something wrong and what the hell was Jim supposed to do about it?

But he still hadn't quite realized how serious the problem was.  It was a week later before he naively walked up to Spock after shift one day and cheerfully asked:

"Hey, can we talk?"

And Spock had turned and speared him with cold, empty eyes and then said in no uncertain terms, "No."

That was really when it hit home.

Jim tried getting him to talk three more times, in a variety of different ways, and the answer was always the same. The fourth time was different, because that was when Spock pushed past Jim bodily on his way through the corridor, and the fifth time was when he started to monologue about science and wouldn't stop until Jim went away.  That was when McCoy got wind and started making noises about medical examinations, and that was also when Spock flatly refused to be seen, and after that was when Jim put his foot down and ordered him to talk.  And that was when Spock locked himself in his quarters and refused to come out except for bridge shifts.

Which brought them to today.

Jim tried hard to ignore the stares and whispers of the crew.  He could hardly blame them.  He imagined he made quite the sight, stood impatiently outside Spock's quarter with his hands planted squarely on his hips.  It wasn’t as though the Captain of a ship could walk around it incognito and if there was one thing Jim was good at it was playing to an audience.

Still.  It wasn't exactly reassuring to hear half the people passing through the corridors whispering hedge bets to one another about how long would take him to cave this time.  It wasn’t every Captain that had to practically beg to get an audience with his First Officer.

Jim buzzed for entry again, grimly waving his hand over the door sensor.  There'd been no answer the first two times, even though he had the computer verify twice that Spock was in his quarters and hadn't found some way to escape.  Jim had about reached his limit with passive-aggressive Vulcans and if Spock didn’t let him in soon then Jim had no less than three subroutines stored in the ships memory banks specifically designed to override the Vulcan’s privacy lock.  Not to mention his personal command code as Captain, though he was hoping to avoid that.  He’d come prepared this time.

If Spock wasn't willing to talk then nothing Jim could do would make him.  But there would be no more hiding.

He gave Spock the benefit of the doubt for another three entry signals before he gave it up as a lost cause.  Subroutine one failed - Spock had apparently predicted his Captain might arrive prepared and planned accordingly -  but subroutine two worked like a charm.

Ha, Jim thought, mentally thumbing his nose at all the skeptics who’d been predicting his failure.  It wasn’t just any local farm boy who could reconfigure complex computer programming like the Kobayashi Maru and get away with it.

A wave of heat reached out and plowed into Jim the moment he stepped into the dimly lit quarters.  It was like the most sweltering summer he could ever remember experiencing in Iowa.  It was the sort of hot, dry inferno that immediately made sweat break out all over his body.  He stumbled and the doors swished quickly closed behind him.

"Computer," he called.  "Return ambient temperature in these quarters to ship-wide normal."

The gentle chirrup of acknowledgement was followed immediately by a wash of coolness as the environmental controls replaced the air already present.   Jim took a deep breath, goosebumps breaking out all over his arms at the sudden shift in conditions.  Damn.  Either Spock was trying to subtly bake him out or that was how he always preferred his quarters.  Jim quietly made a mental note to never visit Spock in here unless absolutely necessary, or to bring plenty of emergency icepacks if a visit was unavoidable.

"It seems particularly ill-mannered to break into a person’s quarters and then proceed to alter their existing configuration, Captain."

Jim tried to look as though he'd known all along that Spock was over in the sleeping alcove, but his efforts at dignity were a lost cause, really.  Spock was plainly visible from where Jim stood and made no attempt to hide himself.

"Well, next time I buzz for entry have them fit for visitors, Mr. Spock.  Then I won’t have to start rearranging the furniture."

"My lack of response might be considered a strong indicator of a desire for solitude, sir."

The Vulcan was mostly in shadow and his low baritone voice seemed to issue from a well of nothingness.  Jim blinked to discover that Spock was out of uniform and sitting haphazardly sprawled in the alcove.  He realized some part of him had expected Spock to still be dressed in science blues, not the thick black robe he currently wore.  It looked surprisingly well on him, highlighting the Vulcan's exotic features sharply.  And Jim knew if he'd ever imagined Spock lying down on a bed at all it would have been ramrod straight on his back with hands folded neatly over his abdomen.  The informal slump he'd currently adopted was strangely bizarre.

Jim pulled his wandering attention back with some effort.

"Right," he said.  "I got that message the last two times I tried to talk to you.  It’s a little hard to miss when the closest I can get to a conversation with you is by having one with your back."

"If you were aware of my wishes then I fail to see why you invaded my privacy."

"Oh, I’ll get to that Spock," Jim said.  "Believe me, that’s only one of the topics I’m planning to cover tonight."

"Unfortunately, sir, I am unavailable for discussion at this time."

Spock rose from the mattress like a shadow detaching itself from the night and took three steps in Jim’s direction.  Jim firmly suppressed the instinct to step backward; the door sensors would part for him automatically if he did, probably exactly what Spock was counting on.  But Jim wasn't leaving; they could talk this out here or they could about it in the corridor  The last thing either of them needed was an audience to this argument.  And he had no doubts that it was definitely going to be a fight to remember.

"I ask you to respect my wishes, Captain," Spock said.  His solemn eyes were opaque and hard and there was no softness to them, no invitation to press for more, no indication of his Human half at all.  It was as though the Spock that Jim had come to rely on in the first few weeks of his command had simply vanished.  The Spock who teased quietly about his character references had been usurped by an imposter and then buried beneath a mountain of logic that had about as much give as a pile of duridium-reinforced-bricks.

Jim missed the friendship they'd only just started to create.  Granted, it was a friendship that some days seemed to rely solely on their ability to needle one another more accurately than any other person in the galaxy.  But there was a fluency to their connection that showed Jim this had the potential to be one of the most essential relationships in his life, as important to him as his friendship with McCoy, closer than any flimsy tie like blood.  And he wasn't interested in losing Spock before he'd even really begun to know him.

"Sorry, Spock," Jim said.  "But trust me.  Your wishes would result in something neither of us would be very happy with."

"Happiness is a Human emotion, Captain."

"No, Spock," Jim said in exasperation.  "Happiness is an emotional _state_ , and that's something _both_ of our species are prone to.  And don’t even try and tell me otherwise.  I have your own words to prove it."

"I have never made such a claim."

"The other you."

Spock’s black eyes snapped in irritation.  The relief at seeing even so small a twinge of reaction momentarily derailed Jim’s previous line of thought.

"He is _not_ me," Spock said.  "Do not compare me to him.  My counterpart has made several declarations I have recently found to be in error.  I assure you that this is one of them."

"Lying to me now, Spock?" Jim asked softly, mind whirring away.  There was a world of insight to be gained from those last two sentences.  If he wasn’t mistaken, Spock was angry at - well, Spock.  Jim wondered what the elder could have possibly said to his much younger self that would've spiralled Spock into such chaos over it.

"Vulcan’s do not lie, Captain."

"And another lie within a lie, Spock.  I think you’re losing your edge. You can’t tell me our _mutual acquaintance_ didn’t lie to me about the disastrous possibilities of you and he meeting face to face."

Spock was more than irritated now; he was becoming angry.  Jim could see it in the stiff posture of his body, the line of tension marking his folded hands.

"I see I have made an error in sharing that information with you.  I had thought it necessary at the time that you be made aware of his interference.  But it appears to have given you the false impression you have a greater understanding of myself than I."

"Of course I do," Jim said, in a voice he’d specifically designed with great pains to irritate McCoy in the fastest way possible.  "I wouldn’t break into your quarters for anything less than the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tell you to your face that you’re being an idiot, Mr. Spock."

Deceptively slender and skillful hands whitened, clenching hard into fists. "I will not allow you to speak to me in such a manner."

Jim smiled at him, the same devil-may-care expression he’d worn on the bridge months ago, saying the exact same words –

"Then stop me, Spock."

His First bullied one step closer and Jim crouched into a defensive posture, prepared to use speed instead of brute strength this time.  That was a lesson he’d learned too well; against a Vulcan’s superior physical capabilities he had no chance, but in manoeuvrability he was at least on par, if not more able.  The safer tactic would have been to step back into the corridor but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, do that.  

Spock seemed to realize history was about to repeat itself.  Jim watched as the Vulcan reigned himself in, pulling up short and closing his eyes to regain his composure.  Jim straightened up quickly and stepped into his personal space.  Breaking through that exasperating emotional control was his best weapon against Spock’s internal monologue of logic.  He couldn’t afford to let the moment fade away.

"What did he say to you that's got you tied up in knots?"

Spock opened his eyes, the storm leashed once again, but it hovered threateningly in the shadows and Jim thrilled to notice it there.  Spock was closer to the edge of his control than was probably safe, but that was exactly where Jim wanted him.  He was going to get the truth out of his Vulcan companion if it killed them both.  And it just might.

"I have said I do not wish to speak of this, sir."

"No, you’ve said you have no wish for company.  But you’ve got no choice there, Spock, so live with it.  Tell me what he said.  Look at it logically.  You are I are the only two people in this galaxy who know the true identity of the respected elder who’s planning to pioneer the efforts of the new Vulcan colony.  As Captain of the Enterprise, the flagship of the Federation – of whom Vulcan is still a member, I might add – I should be made aware of all concerns about him, shouldn’t I?"

Spock stared at him, looking profoundly unimpressed with this weak show of logic. "That is not why you wish to know."

"But it's a valid reason.  C’mon Spock, just tell me."

Spock turned his head to the side and Jim was treated to his profile, stark in the low lighting, silhouetted against the small viewport of stars behind him.  He was like a marble carving of an old Greek God come to life, burnished in ebony and ivory and just as still, just as timelessly beautiful, caught in a moment of agonized indecision.

Jim forced himself to look away, re-marshalling his defenses.  Spock was beautiful and brilliant and surprisingly funny, but he was Jim's First Officer and friend before he was anything else.  Jim needed to get a hold of himself.

"He advised me to remain in Starfleet, as you are already aware," Spock said softly.  Jim had to strain to hear his quiet voice over the pounding of anticipation in his veins.  "He told me that I would – discover my greatest potential here, and the relationships which would define me in necessary ways.  That I should allow myself to be selfish, if only in this one decision. His exact phrasing was, to quote, that I should ‘put aside logic and do what feels right’."

"Ah," Jim said, somewhat perplexed, but hell, he’d never met another Vulcan quite like Ambassador Spock.  That was a man who knew himself well enough to be comfortable with whatever form his feelings or thoughts might take.  A man who didn't hold himself apart from his emotions as though they were a plague, embracing them instead as part of who he was.  Vulcan or otherwise, Jim had before never met someone so astonishingly at peace with themselves, and he suspected he might never again.

"Well," Jim said.  "Odd instructions coming from a Vulcan, but –"

"Odd?" Spock swung his head around to stare at him and the instinct for self-preservation made Jim freeze.  Spock’s eyes were dark pools in his face, as deep as the black hole they had barely escaped from.  And in their depths burned a terrible pain that made the breath catch in Jim’s throat.  "Those instructions are unconscionable.  Put aside logic?  Do what is right?  How am I to know what constitutes right?  I have tried to see it, but every day I lose more perspective, every hour weighs more heavily.  No amount of meditation provides an answer."

"An answer to what, Spock?"

Spock seemed not to hear him.  "He has set me on a broken path.  There is nothing before me but ruin.  The remains of a dead people and family.  There is nothing."

"There's _not_ nothing," Jim said gently.  "There's the Enterprise.  The crew.  There's Uhura; there's me."

"You?" Spock asked, not scornfully, but with real surprise.  "I know my duty and will discharge it.  But I have little else to offer you or anyone; what use have you for me?"

"That's not true."

"It is.  All that remains in me are empty promises I am ill equipped to fulfill.  Relying on feelings has undone everything.  Surely these feelings cannot be right, surely they cannot be meant to guide me."

"Why not, Spock?  What have you been feeling that's not right?" Jim interrupted, hearing something ugly beneath the other man's words, something that sent all of his command instincts into overdrive.  This, here, was the heart of the matter.  What had driven Spock to his inexplicable distance from everyone, to his flight from all things even remotely rational.  This was the answer.  Jim could feel it.

Spock turned sharply away looking very much like a puppet whose strings had been cut.  And Jim was shoving forward before he even knew he meant to, grabbing hold of Spock’s elbow and whipping him back around, by sheer force of will, because there was no way he could physically force Spock to do something the Vulcan wasn’t prepared to do.  Spock's eyes were clenched closed, his face pinched into nonexpression, except for the thunderous tilt of his brow, the corded arm that practically vibrated with tension in Jim’s hand.

"Release me," Spock demanded, tugging ineffectually at his arm, but if he meant to have his limb back Spock would have to pry up Jim's fingers one by one.  They were too close to give it up now.

"Don’t be a coward, Spock," Jim snarled, watching the flicker of those black eyes, the slight tremor telling him his cruelty had struck pay dirt.  Jim pushed on; if compassion wouldn't work, perhaps anger would goad him to the truth.  "Only a coward would refuse to talk about something that’s so obviously causing illogical reactions in him.  Only a coward would hide in his quarters to get away from the prying eyes of the people who care about him.  Only a coward would ignore a friend like Uhura without so much as a by-your-leave, would ignore his Captain –"

"I need not explain myself to you," Spock rasped.  His voice was ice and the thin edge of a sharp blade. 

"Yes you damn well _do_ , Spock!  I _order_ you to explain it."

"You think to order my emotions as though they are dogs to come running at your beck and call, _Captain?_ " And the verbal blade became bloody. "You cannot force me to obey that order.  Regulations clearly state that no officer may be coerced to speak of personal matters that have no adverse effect to ship functions –"

"Blast regulations, Spock!  Tell me," Jim found himself saying, and vaguely wondered when he’d lost control of this conversation, when he'd allowed himself to be emotionally compromised.  Hadn’t this been about getting Spock to talk for his own good?  Or was it really about getting him to talk because Jim just had to _know_?

"I will not," Spock thundered and in that moment Jim truly believed that.  One day Jim would learn to shut his stupid mouth so it didn’t do things like dare his stubborn Vulcan First into withholding vital information.

"Yes. You. Will." Jim growled, shaking him, and he was amazed to realize more than goading Spock's anger, he'd roused his _own_.  He hadn't realized how angry he _was_ until this moment, angry at this Vulcan pretender who had offered his hand in something like friendship and something like companionship, who had allowed Jim to take it and strung him along and then – _took it away_ –

"Talk to me, Spock!"

"I will not speak of it!"

The Vulcan shoved him, hard.  Jim stumbled sideways, banging his hip sharply against one of the stationary tables.  Pain and numbness leapt down his leg all the way to the knee but he couldn’t be bothered worrying about it.  He was too busy reveling in that familiar feeling of adrenaline, the spike of blood-lust that came with any good fight, the insidious moment of triumph at having broken Spock’s control at last.

Now they were getting somewhere.

"Spock," Jim said, petting the Vulcan with his voice because he could see him heaving with violent tremors even from across the room.  Neither anger nor compassion had worked.  That left persuasion, a pretty word for an ugly manipulation Jim wasn't above exploiting.  "Can’t you see what this is doing to you?  Whatever it is, whatever’s happening to you, I need you to tell me, for your sake and for this ship.  We need you and we don’t have you.  You might be here in body but that’s not good enough.  You have more to give Spock, and I want it."

The silence was so thick that it echoed.  Jim mentally spurred the other on, for the first time in his life regretting his lack of telepathic abilities, because they would probably come in really handy right about now –

"You should have left me on the ship," Spock said.  His voice was the low, jagged cry of a wounded animal, the terrifying boom of the Enterprise’s hull buckling beneath pressure.  It made something in Jim throb in painful sympathy.

"What?" he asked stupidly before his brain quite caught up with his mouth.  "Left you on – what ship?  Nero’s ship?"

"On _my_ ship – _his_ ship.  My people were dead, our species in ruin, my mother – you were right Jim, you are always right.  Vulcans do not often lie, but it can be done.  When we left the Enterprise, I told Nyota that I would come back, but I knew then that it was folly.  I gave her the most of myself that I could give, and now that I have done as I said, now that I have returned, I find that I have nothing further to offer her.  I knew that the mission would be my death.  My sole purpose in attempting it was to save as many other lives as possible before that death arrived."

Jim tried to interrupt, hearing the wild twisting of emotion escalating in his friend.  But the Vulcan's rising voice overrode him.

"I set that ship for a collision course," Spock said, anguished.  "I set it deliberately.  I knew it was the only way to destroy Nero, and I wanted his death more than I wanted to live to see it.  The Red Matter was unstable enough to detonate on any impact and I was counting on it.  I was prepared to die.  In that moment I _wished_ to die.  You should not have beamed me back.  Now I find that each moment living since then is _wasted_ _time_.  What was ‘right’ for me was the ending I anticipated, the peace I thought would be mine, and I have _tried_ to accept this new path, I have _tried_ to find new purpose in this half-life, and for a time I thought I had.  But everything is rot and despair, and there is _nothing_."

"Spock, that's _not true_ -"

"Do not," Spock boomed.  "You cannot understand; you cannot _see_.  I do not know how to live with this meaningless march of days.  I do not want to live with this.  There is a black hole within me that consumes every thought, every feeling you and he insist I have.  And I do not know how to stop it, nor even if I wish to."

Spock’s voice had previously been on the verge of a shout but it quieted as he went on to a tortured whisper.  Stunned, Jim could only strain to hear the last of it.

"Logic tells me there must be a space beyond this blackness, but I am blind to it.  I cannot bear to take any of you to these depths with me, but I cannot free myself of them.  It is pointless to try –"

"Spock," Jim said at last, forcing himself to speak past the numbness in his lips, the lack of air in his frozen lungs. "Spock, how can you – why would – can’t you see –"

He took a moment to reorient himself.  He couldn't rely on subjective feeling or anecdote.  He had to appeal to logic; he'd thought to come here and pry up whatever feeling had spooked his friend and forced him into hiding, but this wasn't feeling, this was _despair_.  He'd thought to come here and browbeat the truth out of Spock and then extend an emotional helping hand only to discover Spock was _drowning_ and needed an emergency beam out.

"Spock, you're a Vulcan; you're a scientist.  You must recognize how irrational this sounds.  You must recognize how illogical this is."

"Of course I recognize it," Spock said.  "But that does not stop it.  Vulcan is dead and gone.  I cannot reconcile how I can still be living."

"Spock, every survivor out there has to work through the same thoughts you are right now.  Do you think you're alone feeling so ashamed to be alive you don’t know how to continue living?  Everyone outlives someone, and everyone feels guilty for it.  Every last Vulcan still living in this galaxy is in the same boat you are.  Haven’t you wondered if maybe they don’t all feel like you do?"

"Their feelings are irrelevant to me," Spock rasped, staring hard at the ground.  "Whether this is a consequence of my mixed heritage or whether every full-blooded Vulcan feels as I do; it matters little.  This cannot be borne.  It is unbearable."

"Spock," Jim said, at an unanticipated loss for words.  He shuffled closer and put his hands on those bowed shoulders, squeezing tightly.  Spock sagged beneath the weight as though it pained him, and maybe it did, but Jim couldn’t find it in himself to let go.

"Give it time," Jim said.  "I promise you, it will look different in time.  Not easier, not better, but different."

"You can't know that," Spock said, lowly.  "You don't understand."

As he looked at his grieving friend Jim wasn't quite sure what to do.  What to say, what not to say, what he could try to communicate through touch alone.  How to convince him that this would pass, if he would only give himself room to grieve, room to breathe –

Oh, but he was a fine one to talk.  This would pass?  This would fade in time?  Jim felt hollow even to think it.  He knew the truth of this long-lived pain better than a thousand Vulcans.  He'd lived with it his whole life, beaten and fought his way through it out of stubbornness and raw determination and abject fury, but it had never gotten _easier_ , it had never gotten _better_ –

And if he thought for one moment that sharing that part of himself with his friend, that – that exposing himself to that kind of vulnerability could help him –

But of course it was, _of course_ it could.  He was fooling himself to think otherwise.  It was only that the raw jagged edge of it still lay like a shroud around Jim's heart and it was wounding to even think of exposing it.  Vulcan’s weren't the only ones who could lie.  Humans did it too, but they did a better job of it.  They even managed to lie to themselves. 

And this was no time for misplaced humor, but it was just so ironic, it was –

"Spock," Jim said, and he was laughing, laughing because he couldn't help it.  And even despite everything that had been said before this moment, it was probably the ugliest sound that had graced the room to date.  He saw the Vulcan jerk upright at it, furious black eyes burning a hole through him as the man stepped right up to him in one long stride, pressing them together from chest to hip to thigh.  They were practically breathing each other's air they were so close, and Jim didn’t care.  He didn’t.  And finally he had to open his mouth and just say it.

"Oh, Spock.  If you think you’re the only person in this room who’s wanted to die more than they’ve wanted to live, then you haven’t been paying attention."

They stared at each, and Jim was still laughing, thinking back to a time with a shiny new sports car, and a stepfather he hated telling him _yes_ and _no_ and _it’ll be Tarsus for you_.  And the plan that had almost been his undoing because the whole time he’d seen that cliff speeding up to meet him, he’d been thinking, _if I just took one second longer to put my foot on the break, if I hesitated or forgot what to do, or even if I just – didn’t hit it at all, system malfunction, deer-in-the-headlights, whatever – mom would be sad, Sam might miss me, the fall would be terrifying, but it would all be done, and finished, and over –_

And he was angry and he felt ugly and torn right down the middle, and it was the first time in his life he'd ever put it into words when he said: "I tried to kill myself for the first time when I was eleven years old.  I’ve tried it and failed a dozen different ways since then.  You think I don’t know how you feel Spock?  I’ve lived with that feeling for longer than you’ve known what Starfleet is.  Don’t tell me I can’t understand you.   _I’ve been_ _you_."

"Jim," Spock said, low and pained.

"Don't you dare," Jim said.  "I didn't tell you so you could feel _sorry for me_.  I want you to see that you're not alone in this.  Maybe I can't know your loss and you can't know mine.  But pain?  That's something I know.  That's universal."

"How do I rid myself of it?" Spock whispered, despairing, and Jim smiled at him grimly.

"You can't," he said.  "Pain makes us who we are.  If you're dumb about it, like me, you bury it so deep you can pretend to forget it's there and then you distract yourself from it as often as you can with adrenaline and stupidity.  And if you're smart about it you learn to live with it, and every day gets better."

"I cannot live with this," Spock said with painful certainty and Jim shook him again.

"You can.  You will.  And you'll do better at it than me, because you're you, and you're stronger than I am."

"Jim, you are a successful Starship Captain," Spock said coaxingly, and Jim could have laughed again as they traded roles in their strange game.  "You have been awarded a medal of uncommon valor.  You are surrounded by hundreds of crewmates who respect you and admire you, who seek you out."

"Spock," he said, and finally he just had to do it, slipping his arms over the shoulders of his friend, bearing him down until his alien head rested on Jim’s shoulder, and he could whisper gently into his ear.  "You have that same acclaim.  The same respect, the same support that I do.  Isn't it illogical to seek out death in the face of that?"

"I am not seeking death," Spock whispered, and Jim had always known that Vulcans could lie, but not that they could lie so _well_.

"Maybe not as obviously as I did, but you are.  You're not driving cars over cliffs or looking for fights or trying to drink yourself into an early grave.  But you’re trying to cut yourself off from everything that makes life livable.  And if that’s not death, Spock, I don’t know what is."

The Vulcan’s hands were tangled in his shirt like claws.  He was trembling and Jim pressed a gentle kiss to a pointed ear, unable to stop himself from offering comfort in the face of such abject misery.

"It is not that I desire death," Spock said with the air of a confession.  "Or that I prefer isolation.  I simply do not know how to return to being who I was before.  For weeks I tried, with others, with you, and came close.  But I am not that person anymore and to pretend was exhausting beyond words.  I could not hide that from Nyota and to stay caused her harm."

"Doesn't she get a say?" Jim asked gently.  "She would have wanted to help.  So do I."

"I have already done her the disservice of failing to care for her in the same way she has cared for me."

"We're your friends, Spock."

"I have little experience in such things," Spock said, sounding shamed.  Jim tucked him closer.

"We'll teach you," he said.

Spock sighed, and the sound was jarring and uncharacteristic.

"Why is it always you?" the Vulcan asked, sagging against Jim as though trying to burrow into his skin.  "Why, when others fail to move me, is it always you who -"

A slender hand reached out to touch him, his chin, his cheek, the soft space at his temple where the whisper of strange thoughts hovered just outside his reach.  The sound of painful wonder in his voice made Jim’s throat ache with the unfamiliar ghost of tears.

"Who are you, to break me so?" Spock asked.  "To stare with such unwavering determination into the heart of Vulcan anger, and be so totally unafraid?"

"I’m just your Captain, Spock, and you friend," Jim said.  "I’m no hero.  I’d have thought this conversation, if nothing else, would convince you of that."

Jim laughed depreciatingly, feeling the open wound of decades of beaten down self-worth splitting him open from stem to stern.

"I don’t stand up in the face of your anger because it’s a brave thing to do, Spock," he said.  "I do it because you can’t do anything to hurt me that hasn’t already been done before."

"Is that all that remains for us then?" Spock asked.  "Am I to go on only because I know that life is there to be lived, not for any other reason?  Will I learn to seek out danger, as you have, to drown the emptiness inside me?"

"No, Spock!" Jim demanded, above all not wanting that for his friend.  "No.  You’ll find another way.  I’ll show you how.  It won’t be like that for you."

"We.  We will find another way."

Jim took a breath, considering.  Vulcans lie, and Humans lie better, but this was one instance where he couldn’t afford that luxury.  If he agreed to this he had no doubt that Spock would hold him to it, come charges of mutiny, Starfleet command, hell, or high water.  Could Jim really give up a lifetime of leaping headfirst into danger?  Danger was the most expedient way to bury what lay inside him and had always served him well in the past.  Was he willing to try finding a different way with this man at his side, supporting each other as they limped through their combined collection of grief?

He could try, he supposed.  It was no more than he was asking Spock to do, and Jim had always been competitive.  A rogue moment of humor speared him as he considered that surely anything the Vulcan could do, Jim could try and do better.  The Kobayashi Maru had only been the first example, and was certainly not to be the last.

"I'd be terrible at it," Jim said.

"No more so than I," Spock argued.

"I'll fail."

"Then we will fail together," Spock said.  "Or succeed together."

The thought of dragging Spock down with him was terrifying, but less so than the thought of leaving him to struggle through this alone.

"Alright," Jim said, examining this new and strange reality from all angles. He felt oddly weightless with the frightening anticipation of it.  It was exhilarating.  "Together."

"Yes," Spock said and then brushed a glancing kiss over his lips and laid his head to rest again on Jim's shoulder.

It was surreal and over before Jim even quite realized what was happening.  And it was so exactly the opposite of what he'd been expecting that his body engaged automatically in cradling Spock to him before his mind quite caught up.  He blinked at the back of the Vulcan's head blankly.

"Spock?" he asked.

"Do you think I have missed sensing your desire for this, since the first moment you touched me all those months ago?" Spock said, something soft and pensive in his voice muffled between them.  "Vulcan’s are telepaths, Jim.  It hovers beneath the surface of your skin like traces of diamond trapped in stone.  My senses draw it out as any tricorder might."

Flushing a bright, embarrassed red Jim tried to disentangle them, but Spock would have none of it.  He held them easily together, resisting merely by refusing to move.  Jim stopped when it became obvious that his efforts were futile, bowing his head in something that felt acutely like shame.

"I’m sorry, my friend," he murmured.  "I didn’t mean to burden you with this."

"A burden?  No, Jim.  A gift, perhaps," Spock said.  Dry, warm fingers touched his hair, threading through the strands easily.  Jim could feel the prickle of his scalp and skin shivering with reaction.  "Nyota offered me such a gift, and I could not accept.  But you have felt the thread binding us together, have you not?  Do you think we could so easily make a pact to change one another if this feeling you possessed was not somehow mutual?"

"Mutual?" Jim questioned.

"I never thought to have friends," Spock said.  "Now I have two.  One day, perhaps you and I shall be more."

"I'd like that," Jim said softly, astonished and cautiously hopeful.

"Do not be so surprised, Jim," Spock said, the closest to teasing he'd managed all night, the black despair in him lifting the smallest fraction.  "Do you think I would allow simply anyone to break into my quarters?"

That took a moment to sink in.

"What?" Jim sputtered, rearing back. "You – _allow_ –"

"I hold an A-7 computer rating," Spock said, a bare hint of smug superiority to him.  "The highest that Starfleet has to offer.  It is not so easy as that to override the security programming on my quarters.  Your subroutines were rudimentary.  Not your best work."

"But," Jim said.  "I practically had to twist your arm off to get you to talk.  You tried to kick me out a dozen times!"

"A dozen is a gross overestimation, Jim."

Jim tried to stare at him but they were too close. "Do you mean to tell me that you planned all this from the – that none of this was –" He tried not to feel betrayed, but he couldn’t help it; really, he couldn’t.  Spock had made him _feel_ , and if this had all been some elaborate hoax –

"No," Spock said quickly, pulling away so their eyes could meet.  "No, Jim.  These things that we have spoken of, they are real.  I only left the option that you might seek me out.  I left the door open for you, and knew that no one else aboard would dare push forward where so many others feared to tread.  I hoped, perhaps, that you might show me the path that my other self inferred, to a future that was not so –"

"Bleak," Jim interjected quietly, seeing the vast reach of death and loneliness stretching out behind them, the uncertain future stretching ahead.

"Yes.  Bleak.  I have told you I did not seek death, and that is true enough, but perhaps I have – invited death.  I have welcomed it and rejected life.  I have failed myself, and I have failed you." Spock slid tiredly away and Jim watched as he folded himself down onto his knees, steepling his hands before him.  His shoulders hunched inward and he looked desperately alone.

"Spock," Jim said, sitting down next to him.  "You haven’t failed anyone.  Don’t drift away from us.  We need you, can’t you see that?  I need you."  

Spock had _made_ him need, and a part of Jim could hate him for it, because he'd never needed anyone before and the pain and the joy of it were breathtaking.

"Don’t leave me, Spock," he whispered.  "Stay with me."  He ran his hands through the short black strands, around the elegant point of one ear, to the back of that strong neck.  Bent forward to brush his lips over that feverishly hot brow, across a cheek, against lips that burned like sweet spice against his own.

"I will stay," the Vulcan whispered, the heat of his breath like a desert in Jim’s mouth.  "I will stay.  For you."  Words flowed between like filaments of thought, unheard, unspoken, but too real to be imagined.  Words like echoes, Spock saying _I will stay_ _, because I have found someone who understands the parts of me I cannot speak of.  I have found a place now, here, in this universe that has never accepted the whole of what I had to give them.  I have found you._

"For yourself," Jim corrected.

"Yes," Spock said, sharing pain and grief and hope with him.  "That too.  But not yet."

"Not yet," Jim agreed, cradling him close.  And maybe what they were doing, what they were trying to be for each other, couldn’t quite be called healthy.  But it could most certainly be called healing.

It seemed the only way they might learn to live with their pain was by doing it together.


End file.
